The Bar Towel

Bad:

1. Offering one instance of a brewer's line when multiple examples of one wine producer's wines or spirits are offered.
2. Trafalgar.
3. No Genny Cream yet Ice and regular.
4. Insane time lines for special orders.

Good:

1. Price - much of the time.
2. A real effort to increase Ontario beer selection.
3. Buying crap loads of certain beers by fluke that I really like and no one else touches.

Just to play devil's advocate here, don't you find that half of the bartowel posts have to do with griping about the LCBO? I mean really, is that what we've been reduced to? I feel like I'm reading the same thing over and over here.
Obviously there are people that aren't happy situation (and I am one of them) but I just feel the bartowel has become a soap opera for anti-LCBO discourse, and it disturbs me.

Well, if there wasn't the monopoly thing, we'd all be griping about or praising the merits of various individual stores.

Sure we would.

Yet if it wasn't for the monopoly thing, stores would respond to regional demand rather than all of them trying to be uniform. There's no efficiency in treating all of Ontario as the same.

We'll gripe about the competition, Premier Gourmet in Buffalo, in the next thread.

(can someone upload a "tumbleweed" emoticon for that one?)

Hey, I did manage to post a gripe about Consumers Beverages in Buffalo after I managed to buy beer that was six months past its Best Before date...

Althought the LCBO created the opportunity to offer Air Miles, those Air Miles are fully funded by suppliers and agents. Obviously it's done for marketing purposes and to gain advantage over competitors. I would agree that it would be nuts for a monopoly to offer this incentive but it doesn't cost the LCBO a cent...we're even charged for the shelf talker that is required. It's no different that an LTO (limited period price reduction) which is pretty much funded by the supplier/agent. So, there's no reason to complain about this...grab the Air Miles and take a Sudbury vacation this month.

shintriad wrote:My main pet peeve is the hours in which the stores are open. I'm sure they have their reasons, but give me a break.

Huh?

Here are the hours for the store closest to me:

Sunday: 12:00 - 17:00
Monday: 10:00 - 21:00
Tuesday: 10:00 - 21:00
Wednesday: 10:00 - 21:00
Thursday: 10:00 - 22:00
Friday: 10:00 - 22:00
Saturday: 09:30 - 22:00

Aside from Sunday, I'd say that these hours are pretty good. Perhaps an extra hour on either end of the day would be an improvement, but I don't see a big problem here.

I recall some LCBO's particularly the Davisville one being open until 11pm during the summer. This was a couple of years ago.

I would certainly like late hours for the Cooper St and Dundas & Spadina stores plus an earlier opening for the Cooper store during the summer.

GregClow wrote:

shintriad wrote:My main pet peeve is the hours in which the stores are open. I'm sure they have their reasons, but give me a break.

Huh?

Here are the hours for the store closest to me:

Sunday: 12:00 - 17:00
Monday: 10:00 - 21:00
Tuesday: 10:00 - 21:00
Wednesday: 10:00 - 21:00
Thursday: 10:00 - 22:00
Friday: 10:00 - 22:00
Saturday: 09:30 - 22:00

Aside from Sunday, I'd say that these hours are pretty good. Perhaps an extra hour on either end of the day would be an improvement, but I don't see a big problem here.

I agree with Greg. It's not too often I find myself needing to run to the liquor store at midnight, or for that matter, 8 in the morning.

Geez, next you're gonna tell me how much you love Big Brother's synthetic cigarettes and vodka.

The closest LCBO to me is open until 9:00 at the very latest. I know I ought to be a little more prepared, but on the weekends it sometimes so happens that I'm in need of some liquor to bring to a party, and it's too late.

If you've decide to have company over for a Sunday dinner and you need some wine at the last minute, I'd call 5:00 a pretty lame cut-off point.

The true measure of suckiness is the Bay/King underground LCBO, which is the most convenient on my way home from work. That closes at 6:00, although a lot of PATH stores do...not all of them, though, and no other one closes with such compulsive fervor.

Of course, this is all moot. You may have no need for liquor at midnight, but I have no need for cat litter at 3 a.m. Yet I see little old ladies shopping for it at my local Dominion at that time all the same.

esprit wrote:Althought the LCBO created the opportunity to offer Air Miles, those Air Miles are fully funded by suppliers and agents. Obviously it's done for marketing purposes and to gain advantage over competitors. I would agree that it would be nuts for a monopoly to offer this incentive but it doesn't cost the LCBO a cent...we're even charged for the shelf talker that is required. It's no different that an LTO (limited period price reduction) which is pretty much funded by the supplier/agent. So, there's no reason to complain about this...grab the Air Miles and take a Sudbury vacation this month.

I HATE air miles. With a passion. Seriously.

How many times have you been in a hurry & the person in front of you is searching through their purse/wallet to find their card. Like it would kill them to miss out on a few points. If you're planning to use it, GET THE DAMN THING OUT AHEAD OF TIME!

shintriad wrote:Geez, next you're gonna tell me how much you love Big Brother's synthetic cigarettes and vodka.

The closest LCBO to me is open until 9:00 at the very latest. I know I ought to be a little more prepared, but on the weekends it sometimes so happens that I'm in need of some liquor to bring to a party, and it's too late.

If you've decide to have company over for a Sunday dinner and you need some wine at the last minute, I'd call 5:00 a pretty lame cut-off point.

The true measure of suckiness is the Bay/King underground LCBO, which is the most convenient on my way home from work. That closes at 6:00, although a lot of PATH stores do...not all of them, though, and no other one closes with such compulsive fervor.

Of course, this is all moot. You may have no need for liquor at midnight, but I have no need for cat litter at 3 a.m. Yet I see little old ladies shopping for it at my local Dominion at that time all the same.

I consider it a great fortune to have the Granite nearby. Great beer, great staff and they offer up the kinds of hours private competition is made of. There is nothing like a fresh growler of their cask conditioned best bitter on a holiday Monday in the summer!

There was a thread joking about getting Perry to brew in our garages. I say we all pool together and set him up in a brewpub - with off premises sales. Then we'll be set! (not that I want to put a dent in Ron's business at the Granite)

shintriad wrote:
f you've decide to have company over for a Sunday dinner and you need some wine at the last minute, I'd call 5:00 a pretty lame cut-off point.

The true measure of suckiness is the Bay/King underground LCBO, which is the most convenient on my way home from work. That closes at 6:00...

That's not even allowing rush hour to finish at Bay/King.

And Sunday does often call for wine, although if you were a picky wine drinker you'd have some bottles put away.

Belgian wrote:

shintriad wrote:
f you've decide to have company over for a Sunday dinner and you need some wine at the last minute, I'd call 5:00 a pretty lame cut-off point.

The true measure of suckiness is the Bay/King underground LCBO, which is the most convenient on my way home from work. That closes at 6:00...

That's not even allowing rush hour to finish at Bay/King.

And Sunday does often call for wine, although if you were a picky wine drinker you'd have some bottles put away.

That's how I feel.
If I had any sense of organization, I'd take the extra 10 minutes during the week, and drop in and get my wine, and whatever else I needed.

I have almost never found myself "rushin" to get to the LCBO in the nick of time.